Palin vs. Rove: A feud with no pale colors

Ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has assumed a new role as the Luca Brasi of the Tea Party movement. As with the Corleone family hit man, she directed maximum fire power Saturday at an intra-party rival, former George W. Bush political guru Karl Rove.

Rove has helped form a new “SuperPAC” designed to intervene in Republican primaries to head off nomination of extreme or loose lipped GOP candidates (e.g. Rep. Todd Akin in Missouri, Richard Mourdoch in Indiana) who are likely losers in the general election.

“The last thing we need is Washington, D.C. vetting our candidates,”Palin declared Saturday to cheers at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “The architects can head back to . . .,” at which pound Palin received a roaring ovation, before she could finish with the words, “to the great Lone Star State and put their names on some ballot.”

Rove was often nicknamed “Bush’s brain,” having first masterminded W.’s election victories in Texas and the Republicans’ clean sweep of statewide offices and takeover of the Legislature in America’s second-largest state. He lives much of each year in the capital of Austin.

But Rove used his perch as a Fox News pundit — a job from which Palin was bounced in January — to fire back at the former half-term Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate.

On “Fox News Sunday,” Rove replied to a clip from Palin’s speech by saying, “First of all, I live in Texas, I don’t live in Washington . . . Second of all, look, Sarah Palin should be agreeing with us. She didn’t support Todd Akin, and when he said the reprehensible things he said, she wisely came out and said he ought to get out of the race.”

Karl Rove has formed new political committee to intervene and block nomination of extreme or eccentric candidates in Republican primaries.

(Akin told a St. Louis TV interviewer that in cases of “legitimate rape,” women’s bodies can somehow block an unwanted pregnancy.)

Rove also took a well-aimed shot at “Sarah Barracuda”.

“I appreciate her encouragement that I’d go home to Texas and run for office,” he quipped. “I would say this, though, I don’t think I’m a particularly good candidate, sort of a balding fat guy. And second of all, I’d say if I did run for office and won, I’d serve out my term. I wouldn’t leave office mid-term.”

A recent Public Policy Polling trial heat survey in Alaska showed that Palin would lose by 18 points to Democratic Sen. Mark Begich were the election held today. Begich is up in 2014 and considered one of the Democrats’ most vulnerable senators.

But Rove’s “SuperPAC”, American Crossroads, has had its share of setbacks. For instance, it spent $5.5 million in Washington’s 2010 Senate race, seeking to defeat Democratic Sen. Patty Murray. Murray was reelected.

Phyllis Schlafly the veteran right-wing activist and Eagle Forum founder, mocked Rove at CPAC, saying, “He had almost $400 million to spend on the election last year, and he ran TV ads for 31 candidates, and only elected seven on them.”